A/N: Thanks to ElessarII for beta-reading this chapter.

Some to Misery are Born

Every Morn and every Night

Some are Born to sweet delight

…

Some are Born to Endless Night

- Auguries of Innocence; William Blake

November 1st, 2023

Med-Bay, the Ark

"Agent Collins," Coulson says as he walks into the Ark's med bay, and there's this characteristic deceptively mild tone in his voice that she'd learned early on in their relationship to read as beyond incredibly pissed.

She fights the urge to sigh and plasters on a blank expression. She doesn't care much about dignity, which is a blessing because there's none to be had wearing hospital gowns.

"You are supposed to be resting."

"I'm fine, I've been injured worse before…"

"Severe dehydration, deep cuts, and bruises across seventy-percent of your body, dislocated shoulder, left ankle sprain and that's not including all the injuries you sustained during the Battle of Earth and the Battle of Wakanda," Coulson glares as he reads aloud the medical charts Simmons had prepared.

"The Blip didn't magically heal you. It brought you back exactly the way you left - broken bones, internal bleeding and all. You're so far from fine it's a miracle you know the meaning of the word."

"Drop me in the Hudson, or better yet, the Atlantic," she retorts. "Three hours in the ocean and I'll be golden."

"You keep taxing your Inhuman abilities - they're going to fail you when you need them the most."

"That's never happened before."

"You've never been through this much before."

She opens her mouth, then shuts it and just breathes through the tightness in her chest. The boots are harder to pull on, but she's hardly going to admit that to Coulson. "Did you need anything, sir?"

He nods sharply, as though she'd given him exactly what he'd expected. "Yes, actually. Much as I wish I could just force you to stay here for the next three days, I won't inflict that on the doctors."

She looks up sharply. "You have a mission for me?"

He looks at her for a long moment, before sighing. "The Ark was supposed to be your first assignment," he says. "Your relationship with Manswell notwithstanding, I figured you'd be the specialist best suited for dealing with the kind of situations we saw today. Of course, we never expected it to happen so quickly or escalate so terribly."

She blinks. "You… wanted me to watch over the Ark?"

He shrugs. "As soon as the world found out the truth about Exodus, Manswell and his Ark was going to be at risk. Your actions today proved that I'd chosen the correct operative for the job."

"That was Johnson, not me."

"You kept the Fighters at bay long enough for her to perform her magic. Even she admits that." He sighs. "I wrongly estimated we'd have more time, but I never expected it to occur on the heels of a terrorist attack massive enough to spark the Second American Civil War."

She shuts her eyes. "So the War is definitely happening?"

He nods. "The President's gonna issue a speech."

"I'm coming with," she says, already climbing up. Coulson makes an aborted motion, and she pins him with a look. "The wheelchair's not happening - I can walk."

Rhodey's mouth is set in a grim line as he watches her approach with Coulson in tow. Manswell and Talbot are with him.

She hadn't noticed before, too dazed in the immediate aftermath of tossing an exploding bomb into the stratosphere, but Manzee looks old. His hair and short beard has more white than blond in them, and his dark blue eyes are shadowed with weariness.

They brighten slightly when they see her, and she obediently slips into his open arms. She doesn't want to - his arms around her feel no better than Aunt Jan's had - but like before, appearances must be kept.

She doesn't meet Rhodey's eyes as she withdraws from the embrace far too soon.

"Izzy," Manzee says, cupping her face. His hands feel leathered and wrinkled, and she has to remind herself that he was once younger than her. "It's good to see you. I'm so sorry about Tony. He'll be missed."

Her legs lock up, and the cold returns with a vengeance, stealing over her lungs and leaving her breathless. "Good to see you too, Manzee," she forces out. She doesn't smile.

"You sure S.H.I.E.L.D. is a good idea? I'm from DC - the Potomac still bears scars," he asks, uncaring that the Director of the very same organization he's famous for publicly deriding is standing at his shoulder.

"You sure this is a good idea," she retorts, circling a finger in the air. "Especially after what almost happened today?"

"It's precisely because of this that I gotta leave," he insists, his eyes flicking between herself and Rhodey. "That man, Fred Moppino? He was… disturbed, but he wasn't wrong. Earth is no longer safe, hasn't been safe since the New York Invasion."

"Out there isn't going to be much better, Manzee."

He looks at her for a long moment. "Jake didn't survive the Decimation," he says finally. "I thought that was the worst thing that could happen but - the Blip brought him back. Right in the middle of the interstate. He got run over by a truck."

Isabelle closes her eyes, her throat thick.

"Jesus, I'm sorry, Vic," Rhodey whispers.

"These things keep coming. Loki, the Chitauri, that attack on London, Thanos - who came twice! It'll never end. Nothing good can come of staying on Earth. I'm getting my kids out before something worse comes along and kills them too."

"Nothing can be worse than Thanos," she finds herself saying.

He gives her a look that is so full of pity it makes her want to break something. "You can't honestly be that naive, Izzy."

"Perhaps we can concentrate on what we're here for," Coulson finally intervenes. His eyes are intense.

Manswell nods and ushers them all into a conference room. "We can watch the speech through here - it's bound to be memorable."

She heads for the back wall, grabbing a glass of water to soothe her parched throat. Her fingers tremble and her skin feels too dry - maybe there was something to Simmons' dehydration diagnosis.

It doesn't take long for the conference hall to fill up. Thankfully, they keep their distance from her.

The constant whispers are giving her a headache though. She's starting to think staying at the med bay would've been a better idea. She fights down the urge to rub at her temples and focuses on Coulson and Talbot.

"Ellis Blipped back directly on top of President Kelly in the Oval Office on the 17th," Talbot is saying. "The security detail almost riddled him with holes before Kelly could calm them down."

"Huh," Coulson mutters. "Guess he's not doing too good after, well, everything."

Isabelle closes her eyes, suppressing a sigh. Matthew Ellis, former President, might've been Snapped, but his First Lady and their daughter weren't. They had been in a limo, heading to the White House, when their driver had crumbled to ash. The out of control limo had promptly been crushed under a huge, equally driverless tank.

Bruce snapping his fingers hadn't been the be-all-end-all the Avengers had envisioned. There had been victims of Thanos that the Blip hadn't brought back, would never bring back.

"Don't play coy, Phil. I'm sure your spies in the White House would've already told you all of this."

The Director shakes his head. "Haven't been able to get my people into the House since the Snap. Kelly keeps his people on a tighter leash than his predecessor. And his dislike of S.H.I.E.L.D. is legendary."

"Even though one of your best agents lost her life saving his?"

A dark shadow crosses Coulson's face. "Agent Rodriguez's sacrifice is the only reason why Robert Kelly even allows S.H.I.E.L.D. to exist right now," he admits. "His personal gratitude towards her did not, unfortunately, decrease his wariness towards our organization as a whole."

Talbot scowls. "Can you blame him?" he mutters. "Don't think I don't see what you did here, Coulson. This room is missing a member of your team. I appreciate the gesture, but I prefer to have my eyes on Daisy Johnson when we're in the same space."

"Sorry, Glenn. I was trying to be considerate. And so was she."

"Well, she can be considerate in front of me," the General grumbles.

Coulson nods and they exchange a few words before Talbot moves away, muttering discontentedly. The Director looks over to her, and she doesn't know what he sees in her face that makes it look like an invitation, but the next thing she knows, he's standing by her, staring at the blank screen.

"It was an LMD," he says.

"What's an LMD?" she asks quietly.

"It wasn't Daisy who shot Talbot - it was an LMD. They proved it in a trial during the Decimation and issued a posthumous acquittal," Coulson explains, leaning against the wall. "He knows, and he's forgiven her, but…" he shrugs.

"But what is an LMD?"

"Oh," he says sheepishly. "Life-Model Decoy." At her raised eyebrow, he sighs. "Robots with our faces on them."

"Robots don't have enough autonomy to go around shooting people."

"Robots controlled by a rogue AI do."

Isabelle stiffens. "Someone made another ULTRON?" She banishes the sudden echo of soulless, metallic fingers around her throat.

He hesitates, sensing that he's stepped on a landmine. Or a field of them. "It's a long story. I'll send you the reports."

"The reports always leave something out. I'd rather hear it from you, sir," and she knows her voice is tight, too tight, but she's been fighting to prevent this for years now, fighting and killing and blackmailing and bargaining with the world, ever since Sokovia, while Tony had been doing the same in the political spheres, with Potts and Rhodey providing backup from their own respective fields.

She had barely managed to put out the fires after ULTRON and the Civil War before Thanos arrived and she lost five years. Then she returns only to lose a whole lot more and finds out that all of it had been for nothing, because clearly people don't learn from the mistakes of others - they had to make their own brand new and still uncomfortably, painfully old ones before the lessons are finally hammered into them.

He looks at her for a long moment, before nodding.

"It's starting," someone shouts from the front, and Isabelle turns to the screen, struggling to keep the cold at bay.

She focuses more on the tension between Ellis and Kelly than the actual speech itself.

A few months ago by her perspective - and almost six years by the world's - Robert Kelly and Matthew Ellis had been as thick as thieves; a loyalty that had stood the test of time since their college years. Kelly had been Ellis' biggest supporter, and vice versa.

After the disaster with the former VP Rodriguez's dealings with Aldrich Killian during the Extremis fiasco, Ellis had consolidated and solidified his power - with Kelly a stalwart supporter by his side.

Not anymore. Now Ellis stands behind Kelly, silent and grim. There's something awful and rotting between the two that she can't quite place, not without context.

Coulson shifts beside her, and she can tell from his frown that he's caught it too.

"The Decimation, and its aftermath -," Kelly is saying; the audience, armed before him with cameras and candles, deathly silent," - have made us weaker, as a nation and as a species. It's true. You know it, I know it - the world knows it."

"Five years ago, I wouldn't have opened your eyes to this - but if the Decimation has taught us anything, it's that we are capable of handling horrifying truths. We are capable of enduring the most terrible and unimaginable of events, and emerging from it stronger. Scarred, yes. Exhausted, absolutely. But not broken. Never broken."

"The Freedoms First thought that they could protest this union by committing not one act of terrorism, but two. They thought that their sacrilege would stop human progress, that it would return us to the Dark Ages. Well, they thought wrong."

He pauses and takes a deep breath, and it seems like Kelly looks right at her, through the screen. "There was a man we all looked up to - ," he says, driving the breath from her lungs, " - to protect and defend us, whether it be via clean energy or within a suit of armor, whether it be from terrorists or aliens. He protected us for years, and he gave his life so we could have ours."

"Iron Man is gone. And we are vulnerable. But I promise you, that status will not last. We will show the Freedoms First, and any other terrorists lurking in the shadows, and any aliens out there - we will not bend, we will not break."

"You destroy our statues, extinguish our torches? We will rage against the dying of the light. You kill our best? We will retaliate so hard you'll never walk again. This, I swear."

The audience, and the conference room, explodes in cheers.

"Good night, and God bless the United North American States."

Despite her best efforts, she finds herself stuck in a room alone with Rhodey.

"S.H.I.E.L.D.," he murmurs, and he's never been one to beat around the bush. She's always liked that about him, and likes it now too - they can at least rip off the bandage this way.

"S.H.I.E.L.D.," Isabelle agrees.

"When you told me you got offered a new job, I didn't think it'd be this. Why didn't you tell me?"

His eyes have dropped all pretense, and he's pleading, trying desperately to understand, and she's seen that look far too often in the years before the Decimation. Predictably, it forms a bitter taste in her mouth.

"Why didn't you tell me Coulson was alive?"

It's not the right thing to say, but there was never anything she could've said anyway. He exhales shakily. "I would have - if you'd told me you were reinstating!"

There's silence. "I didn't want you to stop me," she finally admits.

"Of course I would've stopped you - it's S.H.I.E.L.D!" He throws up his hands and stalks over to her. "Don't you remember the last time you were with them? It almost destroyed you - us!"

"You're working with them too."

"I don't have a choice!"

"And I don't have anything else!"

She's breathing heavily and he just looks at her for a long, tense moment. "You have me," he says finally, trembling fingers reaching out to brush gently across her cheeks, as though he can't quite tell whether she's real or not.

She's been repulsed by everyone who's tried to touch her since the funeral, but Jim is so gentle, so hesitant that something cracks inside her. Her eyes flutter shut and she leans into his palm.

Just a few seconds longer.

"I can't lose you too," he whispers, and she feels the words pressed against her mouth more than hears them.

She can't find it in herself to tell him that there's too little of her left anyway.

"Rhodes," Talbot says as they enter the deck. "We're being called in. Fighting's already broken out in the Texan Megapolis and Washington."

"Are we being ordered to put out the fires or make some, Major?" Rhodes asks. His face is a mask.

"Guess we'll know when we get there." He nods towards the Quinjet. "Your suit's already inside. Collins - got some orders for you from the President too. He agrees with Coulson - the Ark is the best place for you."

She nods, unsurprised.

"It'll depart in three months," the Director cuts in, "but just because we thwarted one attempt to blow it up doesn't mean there won't be more. You'll be in charge of the security detail."

Talbot suddenly stiffens, and Isabelle turns to watch as Daisy Johnson steps into view. She hesitates for a moment when she spots the Major, then visibly steels herself and walks over to them.

Coulson continues as though there hadn't been an interruption. "Agent Johnson is going to be shoring up the Ark's cyber-defenses as much as possible before the Exodus. She's going to split her time between the Lighthouse and here, as will Colonel Rhodes."

There's an uncomfortable silence for a moment, as though none of them are particularly eager to leave but also don't want to spend too much time with each other. It's Johnson who finally breaks it.

"Major…"

Talbot holds up a hand, suddenly looking very, very tired. "Listen, Agent Johnson. I've had five years to come to terms with the fact that it wasn't you. But it's still difficult to look at your face."

The President had been right. No one has the inclination to be delicate anymore. Johnson flushes crimson.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have better things to do today."

"I… yes, Major. I'm sorry."

He sighs, turns away. "So am I, Daisy - so am I. Let's go, Rhodes."

Johnson slips away but Coulson lingers with Isabelle on the deck until the Quinjet is out of sight.

"He'll be fine," he says, and she can't tell whether he's trying to comfort her or himself.

She stays silent and walks over to the edge of the deck. He doesn't try to stop her, but she does hear his sharp inhale.

The clouds are still thick - she can't see the Hudson from up here.

But she can feel it.

"Isabelle," he calls, and for the first time, he truly looks at her.

And worse, he lets her see him.

He looks tired, no, drained. As though every inch of fluid from his body has been removed, and he's just muscle and bones somehow being animated.

She hates that she knows what that feels like. She doesn't want anything in common with him, not anymore.

"It's good to see you again," he whispers.

For an instant, the cracks on the inside reflect on the outside as her expression breaks. She isn't fast enough to hide it from Coulson, and she suspects, nor does she want to. "Wish I could say the same, sir," she says just as quietly and steps off the edge.

Mass Effect Context: I decided to create a backstory for Victor Manswell from the context of a post-Decimation universe because the Snap and the Blip do have a massive impact that I'm not going to shy away from. Everything that these past few chapters have been dealing with - the formation of the UNAS, the Manswell Expedition, the hijack - are all results of Thanos' actions, have all happened due to the frankly unimaginable agony caused by the death of half the universe.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Please leave reviews so I know your thoughts!